This invention relates to an image recording control apparatus for controlling the recording processing of a color printer.
In ordinary color printers, a color image is reproduced by combining dyes or pigments of three color components Y (yellow), M (magenta) and C (cyan) or four color components, which includes the color component K (black).
In an example of a recording process for achieving this, images of the individual color components are superimposed on a single sheet of recording paper one at a time in accordance with a predetermined sequence to record the images. For example, in case of a color printer which performs image recording in the three color components, the image of the M-color component is recorded on the recording paper first, then the image of the C-color component is superimposed on the first image, and finally the image of the Y-color component is superimposed on that of the C-color component. In an apparatus which performs the image recording operation in four color components inclusive of K (black), the image of the K-color component is superimposed on that of the Y-color component.
Since the image recording operation is carried out through the three or four steps described above regardless of the contents of the inputted image data, there are occasions when meaningless recording processing, namely processing which does not require a certain recording step, is executed The result is a slow-down in recording speed.
Accordingly, an arrangement has been contemplated in which the application program itself which operates in the host computer is made to control the printer in consideration of this point. However, this increases the burden upon the application programmer.